AirBnB And NYS Attorney General Schneiderman Reach Agreement

The thorn in the side of the city’s hotel industry has agreed to the demands of the state’s justice department regarding regulation and taxation.  The tech giant AirBnB that connects “couchsurfers” with “couches” (but really has turned into a huge alternative-hotel industry, with individuals renting out apartments daily like hotel rooms, has agreed to provide information about their customers to the state with some privacy protections in place, as the text of the agreement from the AG’s office below states:

The following statement was issued today by Janet Sabel, First Deputy Attorney General of Affirmative Litigation for Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, and Darren Weingard, Deputy General Counsel of Airbnb:

“Airbnb and the Office of the Attorney General have worked tirelessly over the past six months to come to an agreement that appropriately balances Attorney General Schneiderman’s commitment to protecting New York’s residents and tourists from illegal hotels with Airbnb’s concerns about the privacy of thousands of other hosts. The arrangement we have reached today for compliance with the OAG subpoena strikes this balance.”